Concerns voiced by the public and scientists suggest the systems for ensuring the reproducibility of biomedical research are in need of repair. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is exploring ways to strengthen the rigor and reproducibility of research findings. Learn more from thought leader Lawrence Tabak in a presentation that takes to task current research practice.

The world badly needs the innovation that comes from continual scientific and technical advances. And both the knowledge and the problem-solving skills of scientists are critical for every nation, no matter how rich or poor. Every society also needs a "scientific temper," the type of rationality and tolerance that stems from the central values of science: honesty, generosity, an insistence on logic and evidence and a respect for all ideas and opinions, regardless of their source of origin. Learn more as leader and advocate Bruce Alberts discusses the important role of science and science education to our future.

Helene Wecker, winner of the 2014 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award for The Golem and the Jinni, reads from her book and is then joined by her agent for a discussion of the evolution of the book from original idea to first draft to published work.

More than half a century after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, long after the official end to "separate but equal," deep racial injustice persists in our society. Unequal access to education remains a dominate force shaping our communities and is seen widely as a pressing civil rights issue today. ACLU Racial Justice Program Director Dennis Parker examines the extent of educational inequity and how our society pushes some children from the education system to the justice system. He takes into account how implicit bias defines the modern United States in nuanced ways that stubbornly obstruct our progress toward equality for all.

Scott McCloud, the cartoonist of The Sculptor and comics theoretician behind the groundbreaking Understanding Comics, presents on the language of comic arts, then participates in a Q&A with the audience.